Wireless mics at center stage as white space testing begins

Will the battle over white space be won on the playing fields of Maryland or …

The Great White Space War moved from its proceeding docket to the state parks and airports of Maryland this week, and both sides have claimed victory. Broadcasting and Cable reports that the Federal Communications Commission has run four field tests of unlicensed devices that can send and receive broadband using frequencies unoccupied by TV channels. B&C's story doesn't say where the testing happened. But, if the FCC's Office of Engineering Technology (OET) followed its published schedule, the tryouts took place at Patapsco Valley State Park and an observation section of Baltimore/Washington International airport.

A Motorola senior director told B&C that the firm was pleased with the results of a test of its applications' geolocator system, which identified unused TV channels "in a valley with trees." The president of the white-space-hating Association of Maximum Service Television (MSTV) said that "the FCC's field tests demonstrated that these devices are not reliable and will result in interference to consumers' DTV sets." Pretty predictable reactions here. The uncertain variable is what the Commission's OET will decide, and we don't know that yet.

The FCC's schedule says that next week's tests will take place in residences in the suburban Maryland towns of Ellicott City and College Park. The week after that, the agency will host a demo at its DC headquarters.

Shure thing

Of course, just because the engineers are out playing with the hardware doesn't mean that some of the earlier controversies have settled down. In a bold move that could have repercussions for the white space fight, a coalition of public interest groups have called for an investigation of nine manufacturers that they say "willfully and knowingly" market and sell wireless mics to "unauthorized users for ineligible purposes."

The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition's (PISC) Complaint and Petition for Rulemaking to the Federal Communications Commission wants the agency to probe Shure and eight other alleged culprits for "deceptive advertising practices," grant a structured general amnesty to all current "unauthorized users" of these mics "deceived by the illegal and deceptive marketing of manufacturers," and stop the sale of wireless mics operating on UHF channels 52 through 69.

The FCC stipulates that only licensed broadcasters, cable TV operators, and movie/TV producers can use "Part 74, Subpart H" wireless microphones, and they're supposed apply for licenses first. But PISC charges that that didn't stop Shure et al from marketing wireless mics to everybody from churches to DJs and karaoke nuts. The number of illegal wireless mic users now overwhelms those with licensed versions, PISC warns, "creating an unprecedented risk of harmful interference with the new public safety and commercial services that will operate on Channels 52-69."

The FCC must move on this petition quickly, PISC says, before these channels are turned over to public safety agencies in the course of the digital transition, scheduled to conclude on February 17. PISC estimates that up to a million unauthorized wireless mic systems run on channels 52-69.

Who are the pirates now?

These demands could throw a serious curve ball to the FCC, which also has to deal with the many filings from entertainment groups that claim that white space apps will interfere with their concert and entertainment stadium wireless mic systems. Outfits like the The Broadway League, the trade association of broadway theater producers, even reject compromise proposals like attaching interference guard beacons to wireless mics. Broadway complains that "the burden of purchasing and tuning these devices for proper operation would fall on incumbent users," and that wouldn't be fair.

But as the White Spaces Coalition and now PISC point out, these wireless mic users cannot claim "incumbent" status until their use is classified as legal. To bring these millions of "pirate" users "into the light," as PISC puts it, the group is asking the FCC to authorize a new General Wireless Microphone Service (GWMS) located somewhere other than the 52-69 UHF channel area. PISC recommends migrating GWMS below the 52-69 zone on a secondary basis, then primarily to the 2020-2025 MHz band after the FCC concludes its currently running Advanced Wireless Services proceeding. Shure and the gang should pay for the move, the filing says.

Once repatriated in this legally recognized region, wireless mic users will no longer constitute a threat to public safety. And wireless mic and white space application advocates can then engage in "constructive discussions around legitimate interference concerns," PISC observes. In effect, PISC's proposals could create a level bargaining field in which white space apps and wireless mics would stand alongside each other as moral and technological equals. The former would no longer be branded a rude interloper, ruining everything for peace loving, law abiding wireless mic users—the latter, it turns out, are neither law abiding or benign to public safety, at least now.

Mermaid crisis

Ars caught up with one of the filings' authors yesterday—Harold Feld of the Media Access Project. Feld said that PISC's primary concern remains making certain that no mics threaten the public safety communications services that will migrate to UHF Channels 52-69 with the completion of the digital transition. "White space focused us on the importance of this safety issue," he added.

To grasp the immediacy and urgency of the situation, one need only imagine the problem of first responders summoned to an emergency at a performance of The Little Mermaid, only to discover that the radio systems they rely upon to penetrate walls and provide medical telemetry have encountered an ocean of interference from the intense unauthorized use of wireless microphones apparently common on Broadway.

All snarky observations aside, the PISC petition is deadly serious. It wants the FCC to put an immediate halt to the selling, making, or advertising of wireless mics operating on channels 52 through 69. PISC includes Public Knowledge, the Champaign Urbana Wireless Network, and the Open Source Wireless Coalition, among other groups.

Matthew Lasar / Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.